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Max Planck - Facts

Affiliation at the time of the award:Berlin University, Berlin, Germany

Prize motivation: "in recognition of the services he rendered to the advancement of Physics by his discovery of energy quanta"

Field: quantum mechanics

Max Planck received his Nobel Prize one year later, in 1919.

Prize share: 1/1

The Concept of Quanta

When a black body is heated, electromagnetic radiation is emitted with a spectrum depending on the temperature of the body and not of its composition. Calculating the form of the spectrum, using the then established physical laws, gave an unreasonable result - the radiation in the high frequency part of the spectrum became infinite. Max Planck solved this problem by introducing the concept of quanta: the emitted radiation consists of quanta of specific energies determined by a new fundamental constant named the Planck constant.